RAD LIFE

He’s no stranger to the weird and wonderful world of sci-fi, with his parts in Doctor Who and most recently Legends of Tomorrow, Arthur Darvill has had quite an awesome acting career so far! We were lucky enough to sit and have a chat whilst fan-girling hard.

How does it feel when you make your way into an established franchise, especially when they have such high expectations, how do you take on that pressure?

Uhh (laughs), stupidly I just don’t think about it, I think if I did I wouldn’t be able to do my job. It’s funny, when you get a job you get excited about what the job is, who you get to work with and what you get to do. Maybe there’s a bit of pressure then, when it comes to turning up for work every day and just doing the job, it’s just about learning your lines, making sure you know your character and making some decisions on deck (on set). Each job is actually pretty similar in terms of what you have to do, there’s kind of a routine element of it and that stops any pressure from ruining it because at the end of the day you still have to do your job. Believe me I’ve had days on set, especially when I was first starting out where I didn’t know what I was doing and I started panicking and the pressure did get to me, but the further you go the less that happens, thank goodness, otherwise I’d quit!

Putting aside the difference between the characters but your onscreen performance from your first Doctor Who appearance to the most recent Legends of Tomorrow, you definitely seem to have progressed! In Legends of Tomorrow, if you could see any super hero/villain cross into the series who would you love to see?

I don’t know, I don’ (laughs). What I like about Legends of Tomorrow is they often pick characters you know less about like Dr. Mid-Nite and Stargirl. If they ever bought Booster Gold onto it, I think it would be amazing but, he’s just such a well-known character that it would have such a high expectation. Jonah Hex worked really well though, it was amazing! Because it’s such a comic book show and doesn’t take itself too seriously I think it was the right time to introduce him on it and I hope that he comes back on! I really do like it when they go, “we’re going to have this character on’ and then everyone goes ‘who is that?!’. It gives a chance for the more underdog super heroes a chance at some screen time and they’re often the more interesting characters as well.

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As the acting team on Legends of Tomorrow, how much input do you get in making the script? Or is it all pretty set in stone?

The writers give us some leeway, so in last week’s episode Caity’s character Sara Lance referred to us guys as the Backstreet Boys and that wasn’t there, but often we’ll add stuff in but then get told to stop adding stuff in (laughs). The writers really know what they’re doing, so sometimes it’s a bit insulting to them if we put too much of our own stuff in but there are times when they let us do our own thing, especially for the less story heavy characters. For example, Dominic Purcell gets to do a lot of improvisation and makes a lot of stuff up and everything he makes up is brilliant, whereas my character is quite story heavy so a lot of what I say is quite necessary to the plot.

Heading back to fantasy land, if there was ever a chance for a Doctor Who & Companion VS Captain Rip Hunter, who do you think would win?

Well, Captain Rip Hunter isn’t very good, he’s not a very good captain or time traveller, he kinda messes everything up (laughs). He’s interesting but not very good at his job!

You dabble in a bit of music aswell, do you ever have the chance to write the music for something you’re also acting in?

Not on the TV shows I’ve been doing but I’ve just written the music for a film that’s being made at the moment but I’m not in that. It’s difficult to be in something and write the music, (but), I’d love to do that eventually.

Of all the things you have done so far, have you any personal highlights?

Yeah, it’s really getting to work with (different) people. There’s two theatre things Ive done which I’m really proud of. The musical Once, in New York, I got to work with some great people there and sing on stage and there’s a play I did years ago in England called Marine Parade which I got to work with some amazing people doing that! I’ve been really lucky, I’ve had a really varied career so far!

What can we look forward to seeing from you next?

Well there’s season 3 of Broadchurch at the moment but then who knows!

Finally, what would be your dream role?

Oh, I wish I had a really good answer, I don’t know! The original Pink Panther? But not a remake, if they could just super impose me into that then I’d be really happy!

What happens when pure comedy takes human form? What happens when a creature is created and bred to do stand up? Nobody knows because that isn’t a thing. What is a thing is Ross Noble doing a show. You can come and see. This is it.